Is it time to get on the Beamz?
January 19, 2011 Post a Comment Thursday, January 20th, 2011, Netcast 1269
Okay, so it’s a (bad) play on words i.e. “get on the beam.” Beamz is a musical instrument that sounds like a digital version of the Theremin. (The Theremin lets you make music by using just your hands to control frequency and volume. It was often used to make eerie sounds for movie backgrounds.) The Beamz lets you make music by passing your hands through lasers. The sounds you make are coupled with synthesized background beats. That means you’ll sound better than you might be without the extra musical help. Leo and I had a lot of fun playing with the Beamz at ShowStoppers in Vegas. The Beamz unit connects to your PC via a USB cable. But wait, there's more! You also get Beamz Player, a software application that lets you play fifty Beamz songs, including works by Grammy-winning artists and independent musicians. You can create and arrange the music differently each time you play a song by changing the way you play the light. Then if you want, you can record your performances of Beamz songs as a wave file (*.wav) or as a Windows Media file (*.wma). In addition to the 50 included songs, the Beamz website offers a hundred different songs for purchase. You can also add sound effects to a video while it’s playing. Plus, there’s an interactive game ShadowBeamz, which challenges you to mimic prompted cues of when to break the beams. Beamz is $199.95 and there’s a professional version that adds much more robust software for $299.95. You can add a music stand for $49.95, but you don’t need it to play music with Beamz.
SEE or hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw1269
Reader Comments